BattleTech : Mechwarrior - Dark Age 01 - Ghost War (2002)

  The Palace resort matched the sand in hue, making it look almost as if it were a castle raised by magic. The main building did not have towers and crenellations, but did have a soaring majesty that evoked power and beauty. The long drive up to the door had been flanked with statues of beautiful men and women of all races and sizes, including Clan Elementals and pilots. The statues were naked, but more along the line of art than anything salacious. Beyond and around them, azure lawns stretched as far as the eye could see, save where they ran to jungle or were dotted with blue topiary cut to the shape of local fauna and mythical creatures.

  I checked in easily, was shown to my room and put my clothes away quickly enough. The room I'd been given was fairly standard for size, but featured some nice amenities. The refreshment center had been fully stocked with Diamond Negro. The beer could have been there because Diamond was an exclusive supplier to the hotel, but I suspected it was because that was the only thing Gypsy had ever seen me drink.

  I showered and changed clothes, then took my bonus money and descended to the gambling floor. If the hotel was a temple to money, the casino was the Holy of Holies and I went right to the altar. I didn't have to wait long to get a seat at a poker table, and after three hours walked away with seven grand more than I'd started with. The people I'd skinned were all guests, just like me, and took their losses with good grace. Given that most were wearing big, blocky rings studded with enough gems that I'd have had trouble lifting one, much less buy one with my nest egg, they could afford it.

  I retreated to my room and dressed for the evening. The store in Manville had done a great job with the suit. While I was certain there would be people in the room who would recognize it was not custom made, they would know it had a designer label. One could decry such shallow behavior, but it made those folks pretty easy to peg and, subsequently, manipulate.

  As I dressed I found myself smiling just imagining what Janella's appearance at a party like this would do. Her beauty and elegance would get her noticed right away, of course. Her being nobility and from Fletcher would have caused a bit of a stir. Her being a Knight of The Republic, however, that would be serious stuff. People would be all over her, wanting to know what The Republic intended for Basalt, for Emblyn and, hopefully, themselves.

  And if they knew what I was, well, I'd not be there if anyone knew what I was.

  I took the lift to the top floor and actually gasped as I stepped out. The entire ceiling and three of the walls had been made of glass, affording a wonderful view of the night sky. On Basalt that meant we'd be able to see a stunning display of lightning. The clouds were gathering to deliver it, and part of me wondered if Emblyn hadn't managed to arrange things that way.

  I joined a line of people snaking past Emblyn at the entryway. An aide standing well back behind him had a noteputer which she consulted as we entered. She subvocalized and an ear-bud microphone transmitted her words to Emblyn, who smiled and greeted everyone by name. He shook hands heartily, asked little personal questions, and laughed at the replies. I took it as a very good sign that no ethnic segregation had been done to the guest list, and Emblyn seemed equally at home with everyone.

  He really did look every inch the successful businessman he was purported to be. Unlike Jacob Bannson, Emblyn was tall and slender, with his thick black hair brushed perfectly into place and his deep brown eyes wet with sincerity. As I came up, his smile grew just a bit broader than it had been with the elderly couple before me. "Mr. Donelly, so pleased you could make it."

  "I appreciate the invitation, Mr. Emblyn."

  "Call me Ring. Everyone does."

  "And I'm Sam."

  He shook my hand heartily. "I understand you won a little bit of money at poker this afternoon."

  "A little bit depending upon who is doing the accounting." I smiled, impressed that his people had been watching me. I'd spend the rest of my stay watching for the watchers, though I knew the casino's security system would make surveillance child's play. That meant I'd also be very careful.

  "Should I feel guilty that they were your guests?" "Not at all." He leaned in closely. "They'll just drop more in an effort to reverse their bad luck, so take all you want."

  I laughed. "Spoken like the master of ten-percent rake."

  He nodded and let me go. "Please, enjoy yourself."

  Thus released I moved into the room. A person in hotel livery found me and handed me a small chit. "You will be sitting at table twenty-seven, right over there. The bars are to your right and left, appetizers at the stations. You will be seated in an hour."

  "Thank you." I pocketed my chit and wandered to one of the bars. While I waited in line I studied the selection and found they had my favorite Irish whisky. My mouth immediately started to water, but I held back. Emblyn's people had pegged me as a Diamond Negro man, and I didn't want to give them too much to think about. Moreover, anything, no matter how innocent, that could link me back to my old self was to be avoided. For all I knew, someone in here could have spoken once with Victor Steiner-Davion and heard him mention that whisky, and bits would start to be flipped here and there until someone decided there was something interesting to learn about me.

  Once I had my beer, in a great big pilsner glass with the Emblyn logo emblazoned on it, I started toward the hors d'oeuvres table. Yes, normally at a party this impressive there would been a small army of servers circulating with silver plates full of these things. Most of them were, in fact, wandering with flutes of champagne. The appetizers, though, all arrayed on twenty-five linear meters of tabletop, made for an exhibition that was as much art as it was food. Things had been color coordinated so the produce from one world resembled the planetary banner, or items from a particular corporation were spread out to look like its logo. The centerpiece, however, was a collection of things that were the picture of the hotel itself, as if shot at dawn from the shoreline. The help could have been carting all that around, but they would have been hauling pieces of a puzzle that no one could have put together.

  The display was breathtaking and, I'll admit, I'd just started to drift unconsciously past, trying not to drool on myself. I was not paying attention until I felt a hand on my right elbow. It jerked me back just as a behemoth that, in his evening clothes, looked like the biggest penguin ever seen, slashed right past me and went straight for the hotel. Clutched under his arm was a tiny dog that graced me with a growl as they slipped by.

  I turned and looked at my savior. "Thank you."

  She smiled, her blue eyes full of fire that matched the sapphire at her throat. "Just returning the favor."

  "Pardon?" "Never get between a man and his snack, remember?" I blinked. "That was you?" "Yes, and that was him, too. Perason Quam, the food critic for the ManvilleJournal ."

  I glanced at the broad back and wavering hips as huge holes appeared in the mural. "That's his name, Quam, not yours?" "Yes." She frowned very slightly. "You've not been on Basalt long, have you?"

  "Not long enough to know him, nope. You, on the other hand . . ." I slowly smiled, buying another second or two for my brain to start working. In the blue, off-the-shoulders gown she wore, she looked much more elegant than she'd been on the shuttle and,yes , it came to me. She was far more elegant than she'd been in Tri-Vid reports on the sewer disaster. "You are associated with some of the private shelters that took people in last week. I remember you, but only caught the middle of a report. I didn't get your name."

  "So you had no idea who I was on the shuttle?" "No, just being kind. Would it have made a difference?" "To some, yes." She offered me her hand. "I'm Bianca Germayne. I'm Count Hector's daughter."

  27

  A person seldom falls sick,

  but the bystanders are animated with a faint hope that he will die.

  - Ralph Waldo Emerson

  Emblyn Palace Resort

  Contressa, Garnet Coast

  Basalt

  Prefecture IV, Republic of the Sphere

  9 February 3133

  "His
daughter ?" "She is, depending upon his mood." Quam had waded back through the crowd, little orange greasy stains curling down the valleys of his multiple chins. The little dog held beneath his left arm alternately licked at his face and the edge of the plate on which he had created a sagging pyramid of food. "Forgive my intrusion, I am Quam. How are you, my dear lady? Who is your friend?" Bianca smiled indulgently. "Perhaps we can find out together. He was on the shuttle with us."

  "Oh, the shuttle. I hate it, but Snookums won't fly, so what can I do." He smiled, deepening the crevasses in his flesh. "Besides, theJournal need not know what I did with the cash for the fare here."

  "No, they don't." Bianca laid a hand on his right arm, the one holding the plate, which engendered a little growl from Snookums. "Thank you, again."

  "My pleasure, child." Quam glanced at me. "Your name, sir?" "Sam Donelly. I'm a special projects consultant." I smiled. I didn't offer Quam my hand because I figured I'd lose a finger or two, either to him or Snookums. Bianca shook my hand, enfolding it in a strong grip. "If I might ask, what did Quam mean about your father's moods?" Quam rolled his eyes. "Not from around here are you?" "Be kind, Quam." Bianca smiled softly. "My father rules the planet benignly and well, but holds certain philosophies with which I disagree. He sees The Republic's requirement of community service in exchange for citizenship as a call for everyone to work. He finds those who fall below the poverty line to be malingerers and sociopaths who would suck us all down into a morass. He thinks they were born evil and have failed to rise above their base nature."

  Quam swallowed a mouthful that was more than I'd eaten in my last two meals combined.

  "This angel here, on the other hand, believes in the virtue of mankind, and has dedicated her life to helping the less fortunate. She created the Basalt Foundation, which uses private donations to fund shelters, meal programs and the like-for all people, regardless of their backgrounds. Her father thinks she is coddling criminals, though his mood lightens when her efforts are praised."

  Bianca risked a growl from Snookums by patting Quam on the shoulder. "Quam donated his fare to the foundation, and was instrumental in getting restaurants to save leftovers for delivery to the shelters."

  "One does what he can, isn't that right, Snookums?" The man planted a kiss on the dog with lips so thick that he obscured half the dog's head.

  "It sounds as though you do very good work." I reached into my pocket and withdrew one of the two five-thousand-stone credit chits I'd been given for my winnings. "Please, take this. I'd like to help as well. I saw all those poor people who were rendered homeless because of the sewer flooding."

  Quam shifted from foot to foot as if his knickers were bunching up and the dog whimpered in sympathy.

  Bianca accepted the chit with wide eyes. "Mr. Donelly, this is quite generous. I really can't . . .

  I mean, it will help, but are you sure?" I nodded. "Not me you should thank, but the inferior poker prowess of that man over there, those two there, the woman there and that red-headed man over there."

  She followed my finger as I pointed, then she snorted. "This is the first donation they've made to the Foundation. I will take it, then."

  "Good. If I win any more, I will continue to donate."

  Quam frowned. "You should really join one of the high-stakes games. More money, worse players."

  "You know this from experience?" He shook his head, and his jowls remained shaking long after he'd stopped. "They don't let Snookums in the room with daddy, do they. But I watch, I listen. Iam a journalist, after all, even if all they value me for is my palate."

  I'd walked past the high-stakes room, and the buy-in started at twenty thousand. "Alas, they won't let me in there either."

  Quam gave me a long look up and down. "I'll stake you for a hundred thousand. Half of what you win goes to the Foundation."

  "And if I lose your money?" He laughed. "My dear boy, I have little need for money. Any establishment I wish to visit on this planet will give me a meal or three, and a room, and lavish gifts on me in the hopes that I will, if not mention them favorably, at least not mention them scathingly. And there are a whole host of companies that create these dreadful packaged meals who hire me at incredible fees as a consultant, specifically so my conflict of interest will prevent me from telling people that consumption of the plastic containers in which the food arrives would impart more nutrition and more taste than the alleged foodstuffs themselves."

  Snookums, having heard that diatribe before, backed it with a chorus of growls.

  "You're most kind, then."

  A harsh voice growled, "That's the first time that's been said of this tub of bacon drippings."

  "Better to be the renderings of a noble animal than an ignoble beast." Quam sniffed and turned away to the buffet table as a tall young man with blond hair and hazel eyes laid a hand on Bianca's shoulder.

  The man looked at me with pure contempt dripping from his sneer. "You are dismissed."

  The sneer I could have taken, but the high-handed attitude and complete conviction that I was something he'd easily crush under a boot heel got to me. I looked slowly at Bianca. "You would know, my lady, if there is a doctor present at this gathering."

  The question surprised her and she blinked distractedly. "I think so. Yes, of course. Why?" "Because if he does not remove that hand from your shoulder, I will dislocate his elbow in a manner he will find painful and that will require two operations and a year's worth of physical therapy to mend."

  The icy tones in my voice froze the sneer on his lips. "Do you have any idea . . ."

  Bianca shook her head. "Bernard, Mr. Donelly is new to Basalt. Sam, this is my brother, Bernard."

  I looked him up and down and could see the resemblance. He looked different from the book illustrations, with his hair now lighter and without a beard. I said nothing.

  Bernard sniffed, and didn't do as good a job at it as Quam had. He let his eyes linger on me for a moment, then looked at his sister. "Father wishes to see you."

  "Here? Now?" She stood on her tiptoes to look at where Count Germayne was shaking hands with Emblyn, the two of them smiling as Tri-Vid cameras recorded the event for posterity. Despite the smiles, however, I could see the tension in the tight grip, and the way the smiles stopped at the corners of their mouths. In those eyes there was nothing but pure venom.

  Behind the Count in the line stood two more people who bore a family resemblance to Bianca and Bernard. The man was Teyte-a little older, a little taller and a lot stronger than Bernard. The woman, Sarah, I recognized from articles about Emblyn that showed her in his company. In the pictures she had been a blonde, but now wore her hair dark brown. Her brother was still blond, but that hue came from a bottle.

  Bianca smiled at me. "If you will excuse me, Sam."

  "Of course, m'lady." I bowed my head to her, then just looked up and glared daggers at her brother.

  The two of them slipped into the seething mass of people, and Quam again appeared before me, eclipsing the reunion. "There you have it, Sam, the future of Basalt. Bernard will rule after his father, and you've just seen him on his best behavior. I've heard a rumor that when the sewers backed up on the west side, Bernard and Teyte stood on a balcony of the palace and laughed so hard at the plight of thelittle people that they actually soiled themselves. I doubt it is true per se, but not wholly out of character for either of the racist prigs."

  I frowned. "I gathered, from Bianca's surprise at her father being here, that this was the last place she'd expect to see him."

  "Indeed, but so many of the rich and powerful are here that the Count could not afford not to be seen among them. He and Emblyn had a falling out after our host asked for Sarah's hand in marriage.

  The Count, who is conservative enough to make the Blakists appear to be the soul of liberal enlightenment, was incensed that a lowly off-world merchantman commoner would think he was worthy of Germayne blood. The pity is that Emblyn really liked the old man, and had cut him in on a
number of deals that buoyed the family fortunes for a bit, but now that pipeline has been closed off."

  "And yet he is here."

  Quam snorted and his dog sneezed. "Of course he is. Emblyn would not stop him. I'm sure no invitation was issued to him, but a suite was reserved all the same. Emblyn does want entrée into the highest echelons of Basalt society. He wants to be seen as an equal, and if his blood does not measure up, his manners can. His sense of philanthropy helps as well, and he donates to the Foundation both to help his image and to tweak the other Germaynes for their niggardly participation in Bianca's enterprise."

  I gave the man a sly look. "That's rather astute political analysis for someone who purports to be little more than a food critic."

  Quam started to slip back into his character and deny all, then his dark eyes narrowed. He whispered in the dog's ear. "Mr. Sam sees what others do not, Snookums. He will bear watching."

  "I hope you do watch, Quam." I smiled. "After all, it's your money I'll be playing with."

  The dinner was very good. I was seated at a table for ten, between an actor and a psychic, which was pretty much my definition of hell, especially when the psychic congratulated her on the awards she had won in past lives. As they compared notes on who it was the actress likely had been, I felt myself slipping closer and closer to my next life.

  After dinner there were music and dancing. I did manage to get Bianca onto the floor and we moved well together. I would have asked her to dance more, but the night's storms rolled in early.

  Everything ground to a halt as massive silver spiderwebs of fire raced over the dark clouds and stabbed at the earth. The lightning came so quickly and so bright that it left dark spots before my eyes, and spontaneous applause arose after particularly spectacular strikes.